The Daily {W}rite September 2019 wk. o3

Maybe He Got Cancer Maybe He Don't Masscre 

Well, if you have been following me at all, you know that I wound-up a few weeks ago with a bad case of shortness of breath. Started off with being a little winded after a long walk or climbing the stairway in my apartment building  . . . and then it progressed to the point where I couldn't walk ten steps on a flat surface without having to sit down afterward and wait for my breathing to slow down. The worst symptom happened a few days ago when at Walmart with my Sis I tried to put a large, REALLY Large bundle of water bottles (filled with water, of course) in Sis' cart and . . . afterwards I walked over to sit down on a bench and . . . pretty much collapsed onto it.

My regular doctor (when I went in to see him at the beginning of this  . . . dilemma) confirmed through blood tests that  . . . I had very little blood in my body and that this lack of blood was causing the problems with my breathing. The COPD that I was seeing him for appeared to not be the culprit. It was suggested that it might be . . . cancer. Fuck! Okay, well, I can deal with that . . . can't I?

Anyway, this week's blog, and blogs to come will focus on my medical journey through the realm of human cancer. No one has yet said it is cancer that I' have but the chances are that it is. So, this my adventure, my mystery to be solved . . . Do I have cancer . . . or what?

AND don't be shy about reading it. This is just another journey, a path that my life is forced to go down no matter where it leads, a path that a lot of my friends are also traveling down. I'm NOT going to be crying in my beer . . . 'cause I don't drink beer anymore. Look, I'm just gonna write about this episode (and other things) and see where it goes. {smiles}

Monday, September 16, 2o19
So, the phone rings and it's a bot call from my specialist in cancer asking me to survey the treatment I'm getting from this new doctor. And it tells me the questions  . . . all of which are multiple choice with the number 1 on my phone being "very disappointing" and the number 10 being "extremely good", and the only number one I had was about time. Was I in getting treatment (a transfusion) at the time the doctor told me? No, that was a big NO! I got to the hospital at 7:40am. My appointment wasn't to start until 8am but they needed me there twenty minutes early before my treatment started to do some kind of paper work. So, okay, cool! Got there at exactly 7:40 and . . . the door's locked to get into the office. I look in and there's a person in the receptionist's office but I can't get her attention. So, I go back down the hall to the front receptionist's desk, and she says, "Oh, they never open BEFORE 8am!" Okay, still cool. I go back and tell David that we are early, which he doesn't take well. But then 8am rolls around and the door is still not open. I sit back down, twenty minutes later I try the door and "Click!" it opens when I turn tha handle and I go in to get my first transfusion ever in my life.

Tuesday, September 17, 2o19 

It's Tuesday. I take the time to breathe Tuesday in. And breathing, consciously. I take air into the lungs and then expel it after a hold count of 1 . . . 2 . . . 3 . . . 4 . . . 5 . . . ah! It feels like I just sucked in and exhaled the entire universe . . . I'm ne with all through, one simple taking in of air, the holding of it in my lungs . . . and then letting it all go in a lengthy sigh.

The trip I already told you a little about, the trip to get my first ever transfusion ever . . . was interesting once I got into the room where it all would happen. The nurse was a bubbly L.A/ sounding girl only she had lived her whole life in Oklahoma. She plugged a needle in my arm and the three hour long transfusion began. I got a blanket, coffee and water brought to me as I sat in the very comfortable recliner they slapped me into . . . there was my own personal TV set on a swivel arm attached to the chair. I felt like I was on an airplane!

Time passed and people started hustling in. Some were there for some kind of treatment . . . they do chemotherapy here also. And for every person that came in there was a person with them who sat in another comfortable chair and read . . . a family member, a friend there to be supportive of the patient receiving treatment. David was there with me after he got his coffee from the fancy coffee shop in the hospital. David: Hey! guess who I saw in the coffee shop. Me: Who? David: Toby Keith. And guess what? Me: What? David: No one recognized him. Me: That's sad. David: Yeah, I'm the only one who recognized him. But I didn't say anything to him. David: So, how's the transfusion going! Me: Fine. David: Good.

Wednesday, 18, 2o19

Up early with enough energy to sit at the computer and write a bit. Already to go to the doctor's appointment (the cancer thing). I need to do something for David. He's been my "driver" and good friend throughout this  . . . uncertain times. Funny phrase: uncertain times. Doom-doom- DOOOM! Ominous mysteries of life and death to be unraveled as we go from one doctor's appointment to another.

5:27pm
Well went to the hospital again . . . this was for a blood test to see how my body is taking to the blood transfusion because I can't do the bone marrow biopsy if my blood levels aren't juiced up to  . . . oh, hell! I don't know. I mean, the nurse tells me what the hell is going on but I don't get it. David knows more about all these steps  . . . than I do. Ask him. {smiles}

Thursday, September 19, 2o19
Waking David up is somewhat of a Russian roulette phenomena:
David: (answering phone) Ragfragindagin . . .

Me: (at home on cell phone) It's noon! Time to get up! Greet the DAY!
David: Ragghaggin . . .
Me: You want another hour?
David: Yeah. 

END SCENE

Sorry about the bloody picture on the upper left. Yeah, it creeps me out a bit too. I should change it. It's a Halloween animation I made early on. Probably around 2o11 or so when I still lived in OKC, the first place I landed after leaving New Mexico.

Friday, September 2o, 2o19

I'm tired. Physically tired. I ate way too much junk food. Although the Popeye's chicken was delicious! Just shouldn't have ate so much of it.

My turn to accompany David to the doctor's. We went on the southside of OKC, passed the fairgrounds. It was such a beautiful,  cloudy day. Relatively speaking, a very cool day . . . so cool that I had to close the window a bit in the car, which has no air-conditioning! AND as we drove down I-40, a flock of geese flew over the freeway! It was neat! It was one of those days when I wished I had brought my camera along.

Saturday, September 21, 2o19
Oh. A bit draggy today. Did get up pretty early, 8:45am. Brushed my teeth, took my vitamins, used the nebulizer and the rescue inhaler and the one a day inhaler, got dressed, worked a bit on Facebook, and watched two more episodes of "American Gods" (my knew obsession), watched a bit of college football on TV, and . . . damn if I didn't fall asleep for a whole hour!
"Pushed my buttons!" You know that phrase, right? "Trigger Warning" is a friendly warning that I'm suppose say before I say something that I know is going to "push your buttons." I have only two buttons these days. Racism is one. Please, please! If you are a racist, that's fine with me but don't try to justify it to me. It makes me mad. I don't want to waste a lot of time trying to convince you that your thoughts about race are wrong because you won't accept my truthful definition of racism . . . you will try to, again, explain to me how your racism is "justified," and I will just get madder. My other button? Pretentious, academics who just know they are smarter, more experienced than you are. Which is total bull-shot. But don't tell an academic that their thoughts are just bull-shot because they'll just keep trying to prove to you how much smarter they are than you! In a way, racists and pretentious academics are the same kind of person. Both groups think they know something that you don't.